Introduction to Risk and Capital Budgeting

What you’ll learn to do: Describe different ways to identify and measure potential risk of investments

A calculator next to a pen and paper.

There are risks in all investments. When we invest in a capital improvement, piece of equipment or project there are many ways it may not work out in the way we thought it might! Risk is the potential that a chosen action or activity (including the choice of inaction) will lead to a loss (an undesirable outcome). The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists (or existed). Potential losses themselves may also be called “risks.”

A variety of risks exist in any capital budgeting process; thus, risk analysis is incredibly important when companies make capital budgeting decisions.

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